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This is a tech refresh article describing any changes since the original article ' Gunship 2000: Getting it (hopefully) right ' was published. Since the original article the version of DOSBox Staging has changed from v0.81.0 to v0.82.0. In addition, since the Gunship 2000 guide was the first, much of the information was subsequently split into smaller, later articles which we will refer to in this tech refresh guide. Which version of Gunship 2000? The original guide was written in responsive to a rather sub-optimal release of Gunship 2000 by the publisher. It recommended a cd rather than a digital release. The reasons being: The cd release was the latest 469.085 version. It includes the base game and Islands & Ice expansion, with the mission editor. The copy protection GPS codes aren't required, so the in-game map 'just works'. There is a complete high quality pdf manual with expansion and mission editor sections. Since publishing the digital release has undergone major changes and has become the latest version with the expansion included. I don't own a digital release but I believe either the copy protection was removed or is included in the revised manuals. Which version of DOSBox? This guide will concentrate on the latest version of DOSBox Staging v0.82.0 which provides excellent 'out of the box' emulation settings. Installing midi components Installing midi components is covered in the separate DOSBox midi article. How I set things up This section was split into a separate, more generic article, DOSBox game management . Setup Joystick/HOTAS Controllers This section was split into a series of articles covering various aspect of setting up a joystick/HOTAS controller for retro sims, including: Controllers and retro sims part 1: Axis of confusion Controllers and retro sims part 2: Virtual controllers Controllers and retro sims part 3: Setup advice Controllers and retro sims part 4: DOSBox The original article suggested the joystick to Windows mappings with a screenshot which although correct, lacked detail. The joystick axes to Windows axes mappings are shown below: Physical axis Windows axis Joystick x-axis DX_X_AXIS Joystick y-axis DX_Y_AXIS Throttle DX_Z_AXIS Rudder pedals DX_XROT_AXIS DOSBox Staging configuration The following is the modified DOSBox Staging config for v0.82.0. The config covers differences from the default config and any settings of particular interest. [sdl] output = opengl host_rate = vrr presentation_mode = vfr [render] glshader = crt-auto aspect = auto integer_scaling = auto viewport = fit [cpu] cpu_cycles = 10000 cycleup = 100 cycledown = 100 [voodoo] voodoo = false [mixer] reverb = large chorus = normal [midi] mididevice = mt32 [mt32] model = auto romdir = "D:\Midi\Versioned" [joystick] joysticktype = 4axis timed = true swap34 = true deadzone = 0 [autoexec] # Each line in this section is executed at startup as a DOS command. mount c "D:\games\dos\Gunship 2000\hdd2" imgmount d "D:\games\dos\Gunship 2000\cd\CQ-SKIES.cue" -t cdrom c: cd \mps\gs2000cd gs2000.com exit The sdl section now uses opengl by default. The host_rate and presentation_mode are suitable for a variable refresh rate monitor. You may wish to leave them as default or omit them if you don't have a variable refresh rate monitor. The render options are all defaults and can be omitted, they are included in case you wish to experiment and try different rendering options. The cpu section uses a fixed 10000 cycle count and small incremental cycleup/down settings rather than percentages. Depending on your setup you may wish to change these settings but these values should provide a good starting point. The voodoo card in the voodoo section isn't needed and can be disabled. The mixer chorus and reverb are a personal preference, but I believe it adds to the music and audio. The midi and mt32 sections specify an emulated MT32 device. Gunship 2000 supports the LAPC1 card based on a CM32L device which is the model chosen by default with the auto setting. The joystick settings are specific to my setup, the 4axis type allows for joystick, throttle and rudder pedals. Timed, swap34 and deadzone work well for my setup although you may need to test and change for your own controllers. The autoexec settings are valid for installing the game from a cd image onto a new emulated c drive as described in the previous article. If you have a digital release you may want to use mount and imgmount commands that use your Gunship 2000 digital release installation folder and cd image. The remaining commands go to the emaulated c: drive, then change to the Gunship 2000 installation folder, before running the game. Once the game is quit, the exit command closes DOSBox. High Frame Rate settings are not recommended as they may result in slow downs during the non-flight portions of the game. Existing installation advice The existing installation advice, in the ' Installing Gunship 2000' section remains valid. If you are using a digital release you may wish to skip the installation steps and use Gunship 2000 from the existing digital release installation folder. Additional patches This is a list of additional patches which have been discovered since the original article was published. All patches were taken from an archive of the MicroProse ftp site , hosted on the Internet Archive. True Speed patch (truesped.zip) This is a file replacement patch changing maximum helicopter speeds to match the information printed in the manual using the realistic flight model. This patch is compatible with the EGA edition. Using this patch is a personal preference. From the ftp archive description: A patch file of sorts, contains upgrades for the various helos used in Gunship 2000. Contains six "patchs" that when copied into the GS2000 subdirectory over-write the existing files. When they do, each helo will then fly at the speed listed in the manual. Example; the apache will usually only fly at about 126 kph fully loaded in real flight, with the patch, it will fly at 147 to 152 kph fully loaded and approx. 159-163 kph empty of weapons. Have tried this file personally and can attest that it does work, beautifully. Missions that used to take upwards of 35 minutes can now be completed in under 25. To use, simply copy the six "patches" into your GS2000 sub-directory and fly as normal. Easier Enemy Troops patch (gseasy.zip) Using this patch is a personal preference. From the ftp archive description: This patch for Gunship 2000 Islands and Ice Scenario provides for easier enemy troops. To implement the patch unzip the file to the GS2000 Directory and re-run SETUP. Additional utilities This is a list of additional utilities which have been discovered since the original article was published. Use of these utilities is a personal preference. All utilities were taken from an archive of the MicroProse ftp site , hosted on the Internet Archive. Pilots Workbench (pwb200.zip) From the ftp archive description: Pilots WorkBench v2.00 for Gunship 2000. This is a great editor with Full mouse support. Compatible with both GS 2000 and GS 2000 Islands & Ice add on. This is the second Series of the PWB from SilverSoftware. Roster Editor (gs2Ked.zip) From the ftp archive description: This is a second party Roster Editor for GS2000 that will allow a number changes to your and your crews parameters. NOTE : This Editor is not a product of MicroProse and the User assumes all responsibility for its use. Roster Editor (gs2krev2.exe) From the ftp archive description: This is a new version of GS2kRE. It can edit some more things and has some fixes and added features. Just put this file in your GS2000 directory and type in 'GS2KREV2'. The file will uncompress and then you just type GS2KRE to run the editor. The original remains available in the archive (gs2krev1.exe) with the description: This is a self extracting file for a Gunship 2000 roster editor. The editor allows you to edit your pilot and wingmen as well as print a record of your squadron to printer or disk. You can also import and export wingmen to disk. Existing setup advice The existing Gunship 2000 setup advice in the ' Setup Gunship 2000' section remains valid as does the later joystick/HOTAS/controller setup advice in the 'Setup Gunship 2000 again!' section. This setup advice should still be followed for a digital release as often the settings are not optimal and you will want to setup Gunship 2000 using the facilities provided by DOSBox Staging. EGA edition The EGA edition of Gunship 2000 has been found by PixelWings so a huge thank you there! A couple of YouTube videos have been created by PixelWings, ' Gunship 2000 EGA - The LOST release! ' and ' Merry Christmas to Everyone! ' well worth checking out. If you wish to try it out, the following info may be helpful. In this example I used the zip archive with the latest 02 update applied so it was version 1469.02. DOSBox Staging configuration changes These are changes to the above earlier DOSBox Staging configuration to run this EGA release. [dosbox] machine = ega [render] glshader = crt-auto-machine [cpu] core = normal cputype = 386_prefetch cpu_cycles = 8000 cpu_cycles_protected = auto [autoexec] mount c "D:\games\dos\Gunship 2000\hdd-ega" c: cd gs2000 gs2000.com exit Note : As this is based on the earlier DOSBox configuration in this post, variable refresh rates and high frame rate settings are still being used. The machine unsurprising should be changed to an EGA machine for the EGA release. The render setting chooses an appropriate CRT setting based on the EGA machine type. The CPU settings were suggested by PixelWings and worked when I tested them, I was able to start and fly around in mission, so another thank you to PixelWings for these settings. The cpu_cycles_protected setting will just use the same cycle count as cpu_cycles. Setting the core to normal allows the 386_prefetch cputype to be used. The default setting of auto will use a normal core, so this setting could be omitted, but for clarity this has been specified in the config. I used a different folder for the EGA edition and the autoexec mount command reflects that. Setup There is a setup.exe configuration utility included in this release. It can be used to set audio, music and controller options. It also allows controllers to be calibrated. Documentation The copy protection mechanism is still intact in this release, so you'll need a manual with the appropriate GPS Authenticator codes present. Controller configuration You can continue to use the 2 joysticks, Joystick and collective and Joystick and rudder options, present in the VGA edition. However the proportional collective option which makes using the throttle as a collective far easier, is not present in this EGA edition. This means the centre point of the throttle is static collective, increasing throttle increases collective until returned to centre, however the altitude will continue to increase due to the higher collective setting. Reducing throttle and collective works the same way. It's tricky to describe and easier to understand if you try it out. Without the proportional collective option it may be easier to use the keyboard for collective control. Good hunting!

A quick guide to running Independence War (I-War) with ReShade in Windows 10. Before using this guide it's suggested to take a look at the earlier ' Independence War: Running in Windows 10 ' article. The I-War version I use in this guide is the gog version, but physical retail copies and other digital versions should work as well. A good starting point would be to get I-War running with dgVoodoo2 as described in the previous guide . Changes to dgVoodoo2 dgVoodoo2 setup There is a recommended change to the dgVoodoo2 setup. In the ' General ' tab, in the ' Rendering ' section, the ' Output API ' option should be set to ' Direct3D 11 (feature level 11.0) ', as shown in the screenshot. All other options remain unchanged from the previous guide. Adding ReShade The latest version of ReShade is v6.4.1 (at time of writing) and is available from the ReShade website. The guide uses this latest version. The ReShade installer was copied into my I-War installation folder and run. The installer only adds ReShade files to the game installation folder. During the setup process you have to select the I-War executable ( IWar.exe ), not the I-War launcher executable (iwar_start.exe). Then the rendering API is selected, (because we have specified dgVoodoo2 to use Direct3d 11), you should select ' DirectX 10/11/12 '. Once installed just click ' Finish '. Running I-War with ReShade I-War should be run using the same parameters as detailed in the previous guide. In summary: \IWar.exe" -b -16 -800x600 Note the Reshade banner at top of screen When I-War starts you should see the Infogrames intro video and the ReShade banner should appear at the top of the screen for a moment (see screenshot). Congratulations, ReShade is installed and running, the Home key can be used to open and close the ReShade overlay. Adding ReShade presets There aren't any specific presets for I-War so I used those for Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos courtesy of Alakelele. They can be found on the Presets link on the ReShade homepage which takes you to the SweetFX Settings DB . Selecting a preset Download and extract into your I-War installation folder, it should be: SweetFX_Settings_b'Independence War 2_ Edge of Chaos'_b'ReShadePreset IWAR2'.txt Select the preset using the overlay controls (highlighted top right in the screenshot). It should be saved when you close the overlay. Adding ray tracing I managed to get a hold of the CompleteRT v1.6.0.9 shader courtesy of Alakelele on the EoC Discord on the I-War Discussion # general channel. Download CompleteRT_1_6_0_9.zip and extract the contents to: \reshade-shaders Restart I-War and open the overlay, COMPLETE RT [COMPLETE_RT.fx] should be added to the list of shaders. Enable the shader and close the overlay to save. The COMPLETE RT shader hints suggest using the ReShade_MotionVectors shader for good results, however this couldn't be found. The second suggestion being the qUINT_MotionVectors shader which was available, but seems to have been superseded by the qUINT_opticalflow shader. The shader can be found on the martymcmodding/ReShade-Optical-Flow GitHub . Download as a zip and again extract the Shaders folder to the same reshade-shaders folder: \reshade-shaders Restart I-War and open the overlay, qUINT_opticalflow [qUINT_of.fx]  should be added to the list of shaders. Enable the shader and close the overlay to save. Configuring ray tracing The shader order was changed to: qUINT_opticalflow [qUINT_of.fx] COMPLETE RT [COMPLETE_RT.fx] The rest of the shaders remained in the existing order. The only configuration I changed was the COMPLETE RT config: 'C_RT_UI_DIFFICULTY' was enabled (change 0 to 1) to show more options. 'Exclude Sky from RT' was disabled. After all we're in space, really it's all sky! Once changed close the overlay to save. The result I'm not a ReShade expert at all, but with the EoC presets and some complete guesswork on my part, here is the result. This is what I managed, if you try this, feel free to experiment with ReShade, you may find better results! A Routine Patrol with ReShade Good hunting!

Before F-22 Total Air War, before EF2000 and even before TFX, Digital Image Design (DID) created a sim. That sim was F29 Retaliator. Created in 1989 and published by Ocean in the same year, F29 brought smooth frame rates and fluid flying to the 286 and 386 PC's. If you were around, back in those days, playing games on the PC, chances are you came across it. The sim includes the F-22, (which looks nothing like an F-22 as the game pre-dates it) and the F-29 which is actually the X-29 experimental aircraft. The original release came on 2 x 5.25" Double Density floppy disks or a single 720k 3.5" DD floppy. A later re-release was distributed on a single cd-rom, with a lot of spare capacity! These days the easiest way to obtain a copy would be with the digital release on Steam . It looks like it was originally released without the manual (which is absolutely necessary to play) but that has been rectified with the addition of a manual to the Steam guides . Controller setup The game only supports a joystick, sso the controller setup is straight-forward as shown below: Physical axis Windows axis Joystick x-axis DX_X_AXIS Joystick y-axis DX_Y_AXIS If your HOTAS profile software does not allow you to disable axes you may wish to use a 4 axes controller configured as a 4axis joystick device in DOSBox. Having additional axes configured shouldn't matter as the game won't use them. DOSBox Staging config This guide assumes DOSBox Staging v0.82.0 will be used. Changes from the default configuration are shown below: [sdl] host_rate = vrr vsync = off presentation_mode = vfr [dosbox] dos_rate = 1000 [cpu] core = simple cputype = 386 cpu_cycles = 3000 cpu_cycles_protected = auto cycleup = 100 cycledown = 100 [voodoo] voodoo = false [mouse] dos_mouse_immediate = true [mixer] reverb = off chorus = off [midi] mididevice = mt32 [mt32] model = auto romdir = "D:\Midi\Versioned" [joystick] joysticktype = 2axis timed = false deadzone = 0 [autoexec] imgmount a "D:\Games\Dos\F29 Retaliator\fdd\disk1.img" -t floppy -ro imgmount d "D:\Games\Dos\F29 Retaliator\cd\f29.iso" -t iso mount c "D:\Games\Dos\F29 Retaliator\hdd" c: cd f29 call f29.bat exit The [sdl], [dosbox] and [mouse] enable high refresh rates as described in this article by Omniclyde. The [cpu] settings are appropriate for a game of this age. 3000 cycles is the default and can be omitted. The cpu_cycles_protected setting will use the same value as cpu_cycles. The [mixer] settings are a personal preference as the digital audio is provided by the default Soundblaster settings and the engine sound can be a bit grating. The [midi] is provided by an emulated MT32 device with the setup described in the DOSBox midi article. The joystick is set to a 2axis device as the game only supports a joystick. You may wish to change joystick settings depending on your HOTAS setup. Deadzone is a personal preference. The [autoexec] section contains example lines for mounting a floppy disk image and a cd image. The mounted folders follow the DOSBox game management strategy. The final commands just run the game and close DOSBox once the game is quit. Installation Since F29 is a very old game installation is dependant on your particular copy. It may include a hard disk install utility. If so this should be run from within DOSBox to install the game onto the mounted c: drive. It may be called install.exe or hdinstal.exe . If there is no install utility then you can copy the contents of the disk onto the mounted c: drive. Setup There is no separate setup utility, so the midi device configured in DOSBox will be automatically used. The Soundblaster configured in DOSBox will be automatically used for digital audio. In addition there are in-game commands to control: Sound. Graphics detail. Control schemes (keyboard, mouse or joystick). Control precision. The manual/keyboard reference should be consulted for a list of commands. Documentation The manual is absolutely necessary to play, as it lists mission objectives which are not listed in-game, a manual can be found within the Steam guides . A pdf manual does exist for the Amiga and Atari ST versions with the missions being identical. There is also a keyboard reference included in the manual. Some later releases provided a readme file with additional key commands. The digital release has a keyboard reference within the Steam guides . However, it looks like some keys have been reconfigured in this digital release. Good hunting!

This is a tech refresh article describing any changes since the original article ' A-10 Tank Killer: Running in DOSBox ' was published. Since the original article the version of DOSBox Staging has changed from v 0.80.1 to v0.82.0. In addition, the expansion for A-10 Tank Killer v1.0 is now available. A-10 Tank Killer Simulation Systems Module 1 An expansion in the form of an additional campaign was created for A-10 Tank Killer. Known as the Simulation Systems Module 1 . It was distributed through the Dynamix BBS at the time and has since been added to the Internet Archive. This expansion is compatible with the version 1.4 patch. The missions are identical to the second Western Europe mission set included with A-10 Tank Killer Version 1.5. Installation The contents of the zip archive should be extracted to a folder within the DOSBox hard disk folder. From within DOSBox the readme.bat file should be run to view the installation instructions. If the game resides within the DOSBox C:\DYNAMIX\A10 folder the expansion can be automatically installed, otherwise the manual installation instructions will need to be followed. Patching A-10 Tank Killer Version 1.5 These patches are not required for the cd release. However they may be useful for disk based releases. They may also be useful if A-10 is being run on period correct legacy hardware. All patches are available from the Sierra Help Pages . A-10 Tank Killer Config The CONFIG.EXE contained in this ZIP file will allow you to override the SmartStart installation and manually choose the options for your system. This is not a guaranteed fix, but it has been very successful. A-10 Tank Killer Update 1 (a10patch) This patch upgrades the game to v1.52b1.  This patch contains a new joystick driver which corrects joystick problems, primarily those associated with using a faster computer (386/33 or better) with a game card that does not offer speed calibration. It also corrects problems seen when using certain mouse drivers. A-10 Tank Killer Update 2 (a10click) This patch will resolve the clicking sound that is heard on some systems when playing A-10 Tank Killer. DOSBox configuration The following is an updated configuration for DOSBox Staging v0.82.0. [sdl] host_rate = vrr presentation_mode = vfr [cpu] core = simple cpu_cycles = 6000 cycleup = 100 cycledown = 100 [voodoo] voodoo = false [mixer] reverb = large chorus = normal [midi] mididevice = mt32 [mt32] model = mt32_old romdir = "D:\Midi\Versioned" [joystick] joysticktype = 4axis timed = true swap34 = true deadzone = 0 [autoexec] mount c "D:\Games\Dos\A-10 Tank Killer\hdd" # specific to the release I use C: cd sierra\a10 call a10cd.bat exit The sdl settings are appropriate for a variable refresh rate monitor. They can be left as default or omitted for standard monitors.

Version 1.0 splash screen This post will be taking a look the versions of A-10 Tank Killer that have been released, what some of the changes are and what it means for playing on modern machines. For the sake of clarity it's worth noting the title of the game changed. For versions prior to v1.5 the game was named 'A-10 Tank Killer', for versions 1.5 and later, it became 'A-10 Tank Killer Version 1.5'. A-10 Tank Killer Version 1.0 menu The original game had a neutral / Western Europe interface. There was only a single Western Europe campaign of 7 missions and the game intro was different. During flight there were no engine noises resulting in a different audio landscape. Physical releases of A-10 were versions 1.0 and 1.1. Usually released on both 2 x double density (DD) 3.5" (720k) disks and 4 x double sided, double density (DS, DD) 5.25" (360k) disks. My original UK copy of A-10 is version 1.1. These days, disk images are more likely to be available. 2 x 720k or 4 x 360k disk images would normally be version 1.0 or 1.1. This version isn't recommended for DOSBox, it is very speed sensitive and requires a lot of cycle tweaking to get it to run 'acceptably'. Setting cycles too high results in weapons always missing their target and SAM's that never do! Version 1.4 If there's a definitive version of 'A-10 Tank Killer' this is it. Speed sensitivity issues are resolved and the joystick and mouse handling routines are improved. The game 'look and feel' remains the same. Version 1.4 is available as a patch (and I've only seen it as a patch). You'll need to google and look for A1014.ZIP or A1014.EXE and apply it to an existing v1.0/1.1 installation with DOSBox. If you want to run the original 'A-10 Tank Killer' in DOSBox, you'll want to use this version. The joystick handling doesn't get any better than this in the series, so a joystick is usable! A-10 Tank Killer Simulation Systems Module 1 An expansion in the form of an additional campaign was created for A-10 Tank Killer. Known as the Simulation Systems Module (SSM) 1 or Module 1. It was distributed through the Dynamix BBS at the time and has since been added to the Internet Archive. The additional campaign comprise of 8 missions within the Western Europe theater and would later be integrated into Version 1.5 as the second Europe campaign. This expansion is compatible with the version 1.4 patch. A-10 Tank Killer Version 1.5 Version 1.5 menu This is the version most people are probably familiar with. The UI is different with the 'Desert Storm' make-over. There are now 3 campaigns the original Western Europe, a second Western Europe and the Desert Storm campaigns. Engine noises are now present leading to a better audio landscape. MobyGames shows a v1.51 release although I'm not sure what the differences are. Version 1.5 is most likely be be encountered as a 4 x 720k disk images or a zipped installation folder. This version runs perfectly well under DOSBox, but suffers from the updated v1.5 joystick code. The developers added a huge dead-zone (approximately 10%) to the centre of joystick movement. Changing DOSBox settings doesn't help as the problem is in the game, not DOSBox, as Version 1.4 proves. It makes for a really spongy flying experience to the point many people are more comfortable playing with keyboard (myself included). Version 1.52b1 The final version, included revised joystick/mouse handling code. From the README introduction: This patch file will update your current version of A-10 Tank Killer to include a new joystick driver which corrects joystick problems, primarily those associated with using a fast computer (i.e. 386/33) with a game card that does not offer speed calibration. In addition, it corrects the problem of certain mouse drivers not being recognized in the simulation. This version is available as a patch, for existing installations, google for A10PATCH.ZIP. The A-10 v1.5, included in the cd compilations 'Aces: The Complete Collector's Edition', 1995 and 'Aces: Collection Series', 1997 already include this patch. This version runs perfectly well under DOSBox, but like the earlier v1.5 suffers from the large joystick dead-zone making keyboard controls the preferred control scheme.

This is a guide to running the Amiga version of the 1991 Dynamix sim, A-10 Tank Killer Version 1.5 under WinUAE emulation. This guide assumes a working emulated Amiga, with a hard disk based Workbench as created in the earlier article, Amiga emulation with WinUAE . Why play the Amiga version? The PC has one major issue which was the introduction of an excessive joystick deadzone within the game itself which could not be worked around. In fact the deadzone is considered so bad that most playthroughs of the game used the keyboard flight controls in preference to a joystick. This marred what would have been an excellent addition to franchise on the PC. The original PC version 1.0 has a v1.4 patch which improved speed sensitivity and provided much improved joystick handling. Why they decided to change it and include such a excessive deadzone remains a mystery! The Amiga v1.5 has a rather more sensible joystick deadzone and seems to provide some quite responsive joystick handling. So if you wish to play A-10 v1.5, with a joystick the Amiga version may be the optimum one to play. Version This guide assumes a copy of A-10 Tank Killer Version 1.5 pre-patched for hard disk use with WHDLoad. Converting a disk/disk image copy of A-10 with the relevant WHDLoad support files into a patched 'hard disk supported' version is beyond the scope of this guide. The recommended version of the WHDLoad patch files is v2.0. The prepatched WHDLoad distribution is normally packaged as an LHA  (LH Archive) file. The workbench installation created earlier, supports LHA files. WHDLoad dialog The original game was distributed on 3 x 880 KB 3.5" Amiga floppy disk. Various copies may be encountered utilising the TOSEC naming convention WinUAE setup The following is a list of differences from the Workbench configuration in the  Amiga emulation with WinUAE  article. It is recommended to load the Workbench configuration file and save it as a separate configuration file specifically for A-10. Make sure to load this new configuration file before continuing and give it a suitable description. CPU and FPU The ' CPU Emulation Speed ' section should be set to ' Approximate A500/A1200 or cycle exact '. In the ' Cycle-exact CPU Emulation Speed ' section, the ' CPU Frequency ' should be set to ' 4x (A1200) '. You may wish to set this to A500 speeds if you think it's too fast. Chipset In the ' Chipset ' section make sure ' Cycle-exact (Full) ' and ' Cycle-exact (DMA/Memory access) ' are both checked. Display As A-10 Tank Killer v1.5 was developed by Dynamix, a US game developer, it was probably written for an NTSC based Amiga. In the ' Settings ' section the ' Refresh ' drop down menu should be set to ' NTSC '. Sound I've encountered sound crackle in other games and I believe these settings reduce/eliminate it. However you should feel free to experiment with sound drivers if you continue to experience crackle. The top drop down menu was set to ' DSOUND: Primary Sound Driver '. In the ' Settings ' section, ' Frequency ' was set to ' 44100 ' and ' Audio filter ' was set to ' Always on (A1200) '. In the ' Drivers ' section, only ' DirectSound ' was checked. Filter The filter settings selected should be compatible with the refresh setting selected on the 'Display' page. As NTSC was selected, the filter settings should be compatible with emulating a NTSC display. For a discussion of filters and slider settings, John Novak's article,   Achieving period-correct graphics in personal computer emulators — Part 1: The Amiga  should be consulted. The 4.0x NTSC filter was chosen, ' D3D: CRT-A2080-NTSC-4.0x '. Depending on your display or personal preference, you may wish to choose a smaller 3.0x or 3.5x multiplier. The ' Horiz. size ' slider was set to ' 2000 ' and the ' Vert. size ' slider was set to ' 2800 ' as required by the NTSC 4.0x filter. Finishing up Don't forget to save your new A-10 WinUAE configuration with these revised settings. Installing Firstly you should create a new folder (or drawer in Amiga terms) on the System disk to store any games, if it doesn't already exist. The next steps are: Open WinUAE or the configuration utility (if WinUAE is started) and go to the ' CD & Hard drives ' page. Click on the ' Add Directory or Archive... ' button. Add the archive file as shown in the screenshot. The 'Device name ' will be DHx where x is the next device no. (so DH2 in this case). Make sure the ' Read/write ' and ' Bootable ' options are unchecked. The ' Select Archive or Plain File ' button is used to select the A-10 archive file. This example shows how the F-16 Combat Pilot archive was added. Once selected, start the emulated machine, or if it is already started use ' Reset ' to reset the machine. The archive should appear on the Workbench desktop as a new disk. Open it and copy the A-10 Tank Killer folder/drawer into the Games folder/drawer. That's it the game is now installed! You don't need to save this configuration, once the folder is copied onto the Amiga hard disk. HOTAS setup This next section is more advice than hard facts as I believe the exact settings you'll need will depend on your particular HOTAS setup. This will describe how I set up my Warthog HOTAS and things to consider when setting up your own. A-10 Tank Killer Version 1.5 was written for both analogue and digital joysticks. The analogue joystick setting was used within WinUAE and selected from in game preferences. WinUAE also has native controller support, with the HOTAS devices seen by Windows also being available to WinUAE. However using the native controller in WinUAE had a more 'sluggish' response. If I used the TARGET profiling software to create a virtual controller, it had a far more sensitive response. This suggests the virtual controller uses a larger scale across axes than the default one provided by Windows. For this reason I opted to use a virtual controller. HOTAS axes The HOTAS axes were set as follows: Physical axis Windows axis Joystick x-axis DX_X_AXIS Joystick y-axis DX_Y_AXIS The throttle and rudder pedals were added to the TARGET profile but all of their axes were disabled. Throttle The throttle is controlled by the keys 1-9 which obviously does not map well to a throttle. However t hrottle buttons can be mapped to the throttle up/down keys within A-10. I also suggest supplementing them with buttons for: Takeoff (9). Cruise (7). Attack run (4). Rudder pedals The rudder controls are particularly important for A-10 when conducting a strafing run on enemy vehicles. If you wish to use a rudder axes I would suggest mapping them with t he rudder axis split into 3 sections, and configured as follows: Axis percentage Action/Keypress 0-40 Yaw left 41-59 Deadzone 60-100 Yaw right The rudder key-presses are active as long as held, so map well to this rudder control scheme. WinUAE configuration On the ' Game port s' page the Joystick should be set in Port 2 as your virtual controller. The type should be set as ' Analog joystick '. Manual configuration Not all configurable options are available from the config utility. The configuration file (.uae) can be edited from a text editor. The following settings: input.joystick_deadzone=33 input.analog_joystick_multiplier=18 input.analog_joystick_offset=-5 control analog joystick response, only the following setting was changed: input.joystick_deadzone=5 However, depending on your setup you may wish to experiment with the other settings. Running To run the game, open the System disk and your games folder/drawer. Within the games folder/drawer there should be an A10TankKiller folder/drawer. Within this folder there will be a game icon which looks like the box cover (this is a facility provided by NewIcons). In game preferences Simply double click to start the WHDLoad config for the game. A WHDLoad dialog box should appear and the game will start shortly. In the preferences dialog box the joystick should be set to 'ANALOG JOYSTICK' and calibrated. The graphics settings can be set to optimum as shown. Be sure to check out the rather nifty 3d credits crawl! Documents It's recommended to try and obtain digital copies of the following documents: The manual. There aren't separate DOS and Amiga manuals, just a single manual with some technical sections applicable to DOS or Amiga only. The earlier v1.0 manual is approx 48 pages with the later v1.5 manual expanded to 100 pages. Either can be used as a sim reference, with the v1.5 manual containing more background and historical content. Quick reference card, which provides a summary of the sim controls. Good hunting!

This is a guide to running the Amiga version of the MicroProse 1990 classic sim, F-19 Stealth Fighter under WinUAE emulation. This guide assumes a working emulated Amiga, with a hard disk based Workbench as created in the earlier article, Amiga emulation with WinUAE . Why play the Amiga version? There are a number of issues with the PC version of F-19 Stealth Fighter comprising of: A certain degree of speed sensitivity. Running the game at too high a speed under emulation can result in weapon misses, such as the normally reliable AMRAAM or Sidewinder missing enemy aircraft. This requires some careful tweaking of DOSBox cycles. Buggy weapon delivery. Certain weapons have a history of being very buggy, with a valid lock and proper delivery, LGB's should almost always hit, sadly this is not the case with the PC version. This results in a tendency to stick with the same reliable weapons continuously, in preference to better suited weapons, e.g. Mavericks rather than LGB's or Harpoon's. The VGA version of the game sticks to a rather EGA inspired colour palette. All of these weapons are usable in this version. The Amiga version doesn't suffer from either of these issues, has fairly fluid gameplay when emulating a cycle exact A1200 and a more VGA like colour palette. There's also: Nostalgia, nothing like revisiting a classic sim. Unfinished business. If you've always wanted to complete a 99 mission career but never managed to, now is the ideal opportunity! Version This guide assumes a copy of F-19 Stealth Fighter pre-patched for hard disk use with WHDLoad. Converting a disk/disk image copy of F-19 with the relevant WHDLoad support files into a patched 'hard disk supported' version is beyond the scope of this guide. The recommended version of the WHDLoad patch files is v3.1. The prepatched WHDLoad distribution is normally packaged as an LHA  (LH Archive) file. The workbench installation created earlier, supports LHA files. The original game was distributed on 2 x (UK release) or 3 x (US release) 880 KB 3.5" Amiga floppy disks. Various copies may be encountered utilising the TOSEC naming convention . WinUAE setup The following is a list of differences from the Workbench configuration in the  Amiga emulation with WinUAE  article. It is recommended to load the Workbench configuration file and save it as a separate configuration file specifically for F-19. Make sure to load this new configuration file before continuing and give it a suitable description. CPU and FPU The ' CPU Emulation Speed ' section should be set to ' Approximate A500/A1200 or cycle exact '. In the ' Cycle-exact CPU Emulation Speed ' section, the ' CPU Frequency ' should be set to ' 4x (A1200) '. You may wish to set this to A500 speeds if you think it's too fast. Chipset In the ' Chipset ' section make sure ' Cycle-exact (Full) ' and ' Cycle-exact (DMA/Memory access) ' are both checked. Display As F-19 Stealth Fighter was developed by MicroProse, a US game developer, it was developed for both PAL and NTSC based Amigas. In the ' Settings ' section the ' Refresh ' drop down menu should be set to ' PAL ' or ' NTSC ' depending on the version you have. Sound I've encountered sound crackle in F-19 and other games and I believe these settings reduce/eliminate it. However you should feel free to experiment with sound drivers if you continue to experience crackle. The top drop down menu was set to ' DSOUND: Primary Sound Driver '. In the ' Settings ' section, ' Frequency ' was set to ' 44100 ' and ' Audio filter ' was set to ' Always on (A1200) '. In the ' Drivers ' section, only ' DirectSound ' was checked. Filter The filter settings selected should be compatible with the refresh setting selected on the 'Display' page. As I'm using an NTSC version of F-19, NTSC was selected. The filter settings should be compatible with emulating an NTSC display. For a discussion of filters and slider settings, John Novak's article,   Achieving period-correct graphics in personal computer emulators — Part 1: The Amiga  should be consulted. The 4.0x NTSC filter was chosen, ' D3D: CRT-A2080-NTSC-4.0x '. Depending on your display or personal preference, you may wish to choose a smaller 3.0x or 3.5x multiplier. The ' Horiz. size ' slider was set to ' 2000 ' and the ' Vert. size ' slider was set to ' 2800 ' as required by the NTSC 4.0x filter. For a PAL based F-19 version the setting would be: Filter: ' D3D: CRT-A2080-PAL-4.0x ' or the 3.0 or 3.5x filters. ' Horiz. size ' slider: ' 2000 ' for the 4.0x filter. ' Vert. size ' slider: ' 2000 ' for the 4.0x filter. Finishing up Don't forget to save your new F-19 WinUAE configuration with these revised settings. Installing Firstly you should create a new folder (or drawer in Amiga terms) on the System disk to store any games, if it doesn't already exist. The next steps are: Open WinUAE or the configuration utility (if WinUAE is started) and go to the ' CD & Hard drives ' page. Click on the ' Add Directory or Archive... ' button. Add the archive file as shown in the screenshot. The 'Device name ' will be DHx where x is the next device no. (so DH2 in this case). Make sure the ' Read/write ' and ' Bootable ' options are unchecked. The ' Select Archive or Plain File ' button is used to select the F-19 archive file. Once selected, start the emulated machine, or if it is already started use ' Reset ' to reset the machine. The archive should appear on the Workbench desktop as a new disk. Open it and copy the F-19 Stealth Fighter folder/drawer into the Games folder/drawer. That's it the game is now installed! You don't need to save this configuration, once the folder is copied onto the Amiga hard disk. HOTAS setup This next section is more advice than hard facts as I believe the exact settings you'll need will depend on your particular HOTAS setup. This will describe how I set up my Warthog HOTAS and things to consider when setting up your own. F-19 was written for analogue and digital joysticks. The analogue joystick setting was used within WinUAE and selected from game startup menu. WinUAE also has native controller support, with the HOTAS devices seen by Windows also being available to WinUAE. However using the native controller in WinUAE had a 'sluggish' response. If I used the TARGET profiling software to create a virtual controller, it had a far more sensitive response. This suggests the virtual controller uses a larger scale across axes than the default one provided by Windows. For this reason I opted to use a virtual controller. HOTAS axes The HOTAS axes were set as follows: Physical axis Windows axis Joystick x-axis DX_X_AXIS Joystick y-axis DX_Y_AXIS The throttle and rudder pedals were added to the TARGET profile but all of their axes were disabled. Throttle Throttle buttons were mapped to the throttle up/down keys within F-19. Rudder pedals The rudder pedals aren't used in F-19, but were added to the profile to ensure they would be disabled. WinUAE configuration On the ' Game port s' page the Joystick should be set in Port 2 as your virtual controller. The type should be set as ' Analog joystick '. Manual configuration Not all configurable options are available from the config utility. The configuration file (.uae) can be edited from a text editor. The following settings: input.joystick_deadzone=33 input.analog_joystick_multiplier=18 Were changed to: input.joystick_deadzone=0 input.analog_joystick_multiplier=20 Custom configurations An alternative is to create a custom configuration. This allows you to map multiple physical axes and buttons from native controllers to virtual Amiga joysticks in ports 1 and 2. The Game port section should be left unchanged and a new custom configuration created on the ' Input ' page. Running To run the game, open the System disk and your games folder/drawer. Within the games folder/drawer there should be an F19StealthFighter folder/drawer. Within this folder there will be a game icon which looks like the title screen (this is a facility provided by NewIcons). Simply double click to start the WHDLoad config for the game. A WHDLoad dialog box should appear and the game will start shortly. Career progress will be recorded in the F19_Roster save file within the F19StealthFighter folder/drawer. Documents It's recommended to try and obtain the following documents: Amiga manual for a complete list of instructions for all aspects of the sim, including keyboard commands. Or: Amiga key reference, for a list of keyboard commands DOS manual for a complete list of instructions for all aspects of the sim except keyboard commands. You should also be able to find digital versions of the ONC Maps that were distributed with the retail game. Libya ONC map Good Hunting!

Amiga Workbench 3.1 Some of the oldest classic flight sims look and play best, not on PC but on the Amiga. While the PC was using CGA or EGA graphics, the Amiga had resolutions approaching VGA (albeit with fewer colours). The sound capabilities would continue to outstrip the PC until the advent of Adlib/Soundblaster dedicated soundcards! This is a general purpose guide on setting up Amiga emulation with the WinUAE emulator. It will cover installing the WinUAE emulator, setting up the Amiga Workbench on an emulated hard disk along with a number of utilities to improve the look and feel. Finally, it will cover enhancing the CRT look and feel of an emulated Amiga. There some excellent resources and tutorials that cover the above, so instead of re-inventing the wheel, those guides and tutorials will be referenced. This guide assumes you are installing onto a Windows 10 host PC. Installing WinUAE and the Amiga Workbench One of the best available WinUAE and Amiga Workbench installation guides are those at the Green Amiga Alien Guide . Absolutely essential reading for anyone new to Amiga emulation, they were created by Paul, who sadly is no longer with us. Without these guides, I don't think I would have been able to get Amiga emulation working as easily as I did. They were last updated around 2006/2007 and even today they are still incredibly useful for anyone wanting to try Amiga emulation. They are based on WInUAE 1.3.4 and because development has continued, the current release is WinUAE 5.3.1, so I'll be adding supplemental information for the later version. WinUAE tutorials All of the general WinUAE guides are worth reading, if you're new to Amiga emulation. Supplemental to WinUAE installation When it comes to installing WinUAE, you can follow Paul's guide. Additionally, you need to get WinUAE 5.3.1 64 bit release from the WinUAE site. The Interchange Preservation Format (IPF) is a format optimised for preserving floppy disks and popular for preserving Amiga disk images. The library mentioned is available from the Software Preservation Society , you'll want to go to the downloads page and get the User Distribution, Version 5.1 Windows 64 bit. I ended up installing WinUAE in a different folder, outside of the default Program Files folder. e.g. D:\Games\Amiga\WinUAE 5.3.1\ Supplemental to other guides Although some of the screenshots will differ from the current WinUAE version, the information contained within is still accurate. Setting paths WinUAE paths The paths section of the WinUAE config utility allows individual paths to be set for each of the file types stored on disk, e.g. configurations, screenshots, Kickstart ROMs, videos. Each folder was set as sub folder within the WinUAE installation folder as the screenshot shows. Adding help A Windows help file can be added to your WinUAE installation. The online help and an offline help file can be found at the WinUAE help site. Once the offline help file is downloaded, it should be placed in the WinUAE installation folder. It should be opened from the installation folder and confirmed it is safe to access, otherwise opening help from within WinUAE will show an empty content frame in the help window. Installing Workbench Installing Workbench involves creating an emulated Amiga hard disk, installing Workbench onto it, along with a number of other enhancements. I followed Paul's guides to create a Workbench 3.1 installation. What I used This is what I used to create my Workbench installation: Kickstart ROM: KS ROM v3.1 (A1200) rev 40.68 (512k) Workbench: Workbench v3.1 rev 40.42 (1994)(Commodore)(M10) As I'm not an Amiga expert there may be better alternatives, but this seems to work well (at least from my limited experience). The Workbench disks used the TOSEC Naming Convention (TNC) and the disks I used had the [!] flag, indicating a verified good dump. The guides I followed These are the guides I followed to create my emulated Amiga: Introduction: To get the necessary software. Chapter 1: To configure WinUAE Chapters 2 & 3: To install Workbench. Chapter 4: To install the Installer. Chapter 5: To install Picasso96. Chapter 7: To install ClassAct. Chapter 8 (Method 2): To install NewIcons with ClassAct. Chapter 10: To install WHDLoad. It's also worth reading Chapter 11, as this gives a excellent step by step introduction to using WHDLoad. Supplemental to Introduction The WHDLoad_usr.lha package can be obtained from the WHDLoad Support Page . Supplemental to Chapter 1 Although the ROM properties look different, the information in the guide is accurate. The 'Hard drives' properties are now called 'CD & Hard drives', however the information in the guide remains accurate. WinUAE CPU and FPU settings The CPU properties are now called the 'CPU and FPU' properties. This page has changed over time and the settings I used are shown in the screenshot. CPU is set to 68020. 24 bit addressing is unchecked. JIT is unchecked. MMU is set to None. FPU is set to None. In CPU Emulation Speed, Approximate A500/A1200 or cycle exact is checked. In Cycle-exact CPU Emulation Speed, CPU Frequency is set to 4x (A1200). WinUAE RAM settings The RAM properties we set as shown in the screenshot. In Memory Settings: Chip is set to 2 MB. Slow is set to 512 KB. Z2 Fast is set to 8 MB. The RTG properties have moved to the RTG board section. The Chipset properties no longer have an Faster RTG option, which has been moved to the Miscellaneous properties. WinUAE Display settings The Display properties have changed considerably, settings can be seen in the screenshot. It is recommended to set RTG to Windowed, as this makes it easier to follow the guides. Fullscreen resolution is left as a personal preference and/or capabilities of your display. Default refresh rate is selected in the dropdown menu. Centering is unchecked for Horizontal and Vertical. WinUAE Sound settings The Sound properties have also changed, settings can be seen in the screenshot. The dropdown menu is set to Paula. The Sound Buffer Size is set to 8. The Drivers section is set to WASAPI but other drivers may also be available depending on your setup. Audio Filter is set to Always on (A1200) as this seems to reduce audio crackle. The Misc properties have been renamed to Miscellaneous. The Faster RTG option can be found here and should be checked. Windowed style should be set to 'Standard', 'Direct3D 11' and 'Hardware D3D11' in the dropdown menus. WinUAE RTG board settings There are RTG board properties, they are set as shown in the screenshot. In the RTG Graphics Card section: Board is set to UAE (Zorro III). VRAM size is set to 32 MB. Refresh rate is set to Chipset. Other Chapters The step by step guides for the remaining chapters remain completely accurate. I was able to follow the guides step by step without any issues whatsoever! Additional WHDLoad information There's an excellent article, Demystifying WHDLoad by Chris, on the Pure Amiga site. Well worth a read for getting some background and instructions for WHDLoad. Kickstart support files Chris' guide mentions some older games will require the older Kickstart v1.3 ROM and .pat and .rtb support files. Aminet currently hosts the support files . Period correct graphics Now you have a working Amiga Workbench, this next section is optional and down to personal preference, but highly recommended. When it comes to achieving period correct Amiga graphics, I recommend this guide from John Novak, Achieving period-correct graphics in personal computer emulators — Part 1: The Amiga . With an almost academic level of detail, it's some excellent work. It discusses the Amiga, aspect ratios, CRT shaders, phosphor and shadow masks and finally bloom and glow. If you follow the guide you'll have some authentic Amiga CRT emulation. This section will add some supplemental information, I found useful when going through his guide. However before embarking on the guide I recommend taking a copy of your current WinUAE Workbench 3.1 configuration settings. Supplemental advice When you read the 'CRT shader' section look out for the link to get the WinUAE Commodore 1084S Shader Pack v2. Editing tooltypes In the 'Running games in NTSC' section, it briefly mentions setting WHDLoad tooltype options . To open/edit tooltype options: Click on the game icon. Go to the Workbench bar. Select the Icons menu. Select the Information... option. ReShade shaders When it comes to installing ReShade , the latest version (v6.3.3 at time of writing) is compatible with the guide. Update : Version 6.4.0 is also compatible. ReShade settings It took me some time to work out how to enable the shaders. You'll want to open up the ReShade configuration panel. On the settings page you need to add the path to the new Shaders added with the Shader Pack v2. If you have followed the guide advice, the Shader Pack v2 should have been extracted to your WinUAE installation folder. The 'Effect search paths' to add will be: \ReshadeShaders You can now configure the shaders as described in the guide. It might also be worth setting the ReShade screenshot folder to your WinUAE screenshot folder. Finally... A huge thank you to the maintainers of Paul's Green Amiga Alien Guide. To John Novak for making a modern LCD display look like an Amiga and to Chris for demystifying WHDLoad!

Box cover This is a guide to running the Amiga version of the 1989 Digital Integration sim, F-16 Combat Pilot under WinUAE emulation. This guide assumes a working emulated Amiga, with a hard disk based Workbench as created in the earlier article, Amiga emulation with WinUAE . Version This guide assumes a copy of F-16 Combat Pilot pre-patched for hard disk use with WHDLoad. Converting a disk/disk image copy of F-16 Combat Pilot with the relevant WHDLoad support files into a patched 'hard disk supported' version is beyond the scope of this guide. The recommended version of the WHDLoad patch files is v1.5. The prepatched WHDLoad distribution is normally packaged as an LHA (LH Archive) file. The workbench installation created earlier, supports LHA files. The original game was distributed on a single 880 KB 3.5" Amiga floppy disk. Various copies may be encountered utilising the TOSEC naming convention . WinUAE setup The following is a list of differences from the Workbench configuration in the  Amiga emulation with WinUAE article. It is recommended to load the Workbench configuration file and save it as a separate configuration file specifically for F-16 Combat Pilot. Make sure to load this new configuration file before continuing and give it a suitable description. CPU and FPU The ' CPU Emulation Speed ' section should be set to ' Approximate A500/A1200 or cycle exact '. In the ' Cycle-exact CPU Emulation Speed ' section, the ' CPU Frequency ' should be set to ' 4x (A1200) '. You may wish to set this to A500 speeds if you think it's too fast. Chipset In the ' Chipset ' section make sure ' Cycle-exact (Full) ' and ' Cycle-exact (DMA/Memory access) ' are both checked. Display As F-16 Combat Pilot was developed by Digital Integration (DI), a UK game developer, it was probably written for a PAL based Amiga. In the ' Settings ' section the ' Refresh ' drop down menu should be set to ' PAL '. Sound I've encountered sound crackle in F-16 Combat Pilot and other games and I believe these settings reduce/eliminate it. However you should feel free to experiment with sound drivers if you continue to experience crackle. The top drop down menu was set to ' DSOUND: Primary Sound Driver '. In the ' Settings ' section, ' Frequency ' was set to ' 44100 ' and ' Audio filter ' was set to ' Always on (A1200) '. In the ' Drivers ' section, only ' DirectSound ' was checked. Filter The filter settings selected should be compatible with the refresh setting selected on the 'Display' page. As PAL was selected, the filter settings should be compatible with emulating a PAL display. For a discussion of filters and slider settings, John Novak's article,   Achieving period-correct graphics in personal computer emulators — Part 1: The Amiga should be consulted. The 4.0x PAL filter was chosen, ' D3D: CRT-A2080-PAL-4.0x '. Depending on your display or personal preference, you may wish to choose a smaller 3.0x or 3.5x multiplier. The ' Horiz. size ' and ' Vert. size ' sliders were both set to ' 2000 ' as required by the PAL 4.0x filter. Finishing up Don't forget to save your new F-16 Combat PIlot WinUAE configuration with these revised settings. Installing Firstly you should create a new folder (or drawer in Amiga terms) on the System disk to store any games. The next steps are: Open WinUAE or the configuration utility (if WinUAE is started) and go to the ' CD & Hard drives ' page. Click on the ' Add Directory or Archive... ' button. Add the archive file as shown in the screenshot. The 'Device name ' will be DHx where x is the next device no. (so DH2 in this case). Make sure the ' Read/write ' and ' Bootable ' options are unchecked. The ' Select Archive or Plain File ' button is used to select the F-16 Combat Pilot archive file. Once selected, start the emulated machine, or if it is already started use ' Reset ' to reset the machine. The archive should appear on the Workbench desktop as a new disk. Open it and copy the F-16 Combat Pilot folder/drawer into the Games folder/drawer. That's it the game is now installed! You don't need to save this configuration, once the folder is copied onto the Amiga hard disk. HOTAS setup This next section is more advice than hard facts as I believe the exact settings you'll need will depend on your particular HOTAS setup. This will describe how I set up my Warthog HOTAS and things to consider when setting up your own. F-16 Combat Pilot was I believe written for Amiga digital joysticks, not analogue joysticks like your HOTAS joystick. WinUAE has two joysticks types, joystick and analogue joystick. F-16 works with a joystick type but not an analogue joystick type, however WinUAE seems to do an excellent job of converting inputs WinUAE also has native controller support, with the HOTAS devices seen by Windows also being available to WinUAE. However using the native controller in WinUAE had a 'sluggish' response. If I used the TARGET profiling software to create a virtual controller, it had a far more sensitive response. This suggests the virtual controller uses a larger scale across axes than the default one provided by Windows. For this reason I opted to use a virtual controller. There are also two control schemes supported by F-16, a single joystick and dual joystick schemes. When set to dual joysticks, the second joystick acts as throttle and rudder. However this control scheme did not map well to physical or virtual devices, so I opted for the single joystick control scheme. HOTAS axes The HOTAS axes were set as follows: Physical axis Windows axis Joystick x-axis DX_X_AXIS Joystick y-axis DX_Y_AXIS The throttle and rudder pedals were added to the TARGET profile but all of their axes were disabled. Throttle Throttle buttons were mapped to the throttle up/down keys within F-16, with a toggle mapping the same buttons to throttle full/afterburner and idle. The throttle up/down keys were sent to a hold type keypress as game polling tended to miss inputs when key-presses were sent as a pulse. Rudder pedals The rudder axis was split into 3 sections, and configured as follows: Axis percentage Action/Keypress 0-40 Yaw left 41-59 Deadzone 60-100 Yaw right The rudder key-presses are active as long as held, so map well to this rudder control scheme. WinUAE configuration On the ' Game port s' page the Joystick should be set in Port 2 as your virtual controller. The type should be set as ' Joystick '. Game port settings Manual configuration Not all configurable options are available from the config utility. The configuration file (.uae) can be edited from a text editor. The following settings: input.joystick_deadzone=33 input.analog_joystick_multiplier=18 were changed from their defaults to: input.joystick_deadzone=5 input.analog_joystick_multiplier=5 The dead-zone was reduced to improve responsiveness from the severe 33%. The multiplier seems to reduce analogue inputs by this multiplier when converting to digital inputs. Smaller multipliers increase sensitivity while larger multipliers reduce sensitivity. The following setting: input.analog_joystick_offset=-5 seems to be required as an offset between analogue joystick input to digital joystick input, required in-game, and should be left unchanged. Custom configurations An alternative is to create a custom configuration. This allows you to map multiple physical axes and buttons from native controllers to virtual Amiga joysticks in ports 1 and 2. The Game port section should be left unchanged and a new custom configuration created on the ' Input ' page. Running To run the game, open the System disk and your games folder/drawer. Within the games folder/drawer there should be an F16CombatPilot folder/drawer. Within this folder there will be a game icon which looks like the title screen (this is a facility provided by NewIcons). Simply double click to start the WHDLoad config for the game. A WHDLoad dialog box should appear with a Buttonwait option, this can be checked or left unchecked and the game will start shortly. Buttonwait Buttonwait is a WHDLoad option. Due to the speed increases possible with emulation, title and credit screens, that may have appeared on screen for short amounts of time with a physical Amiga, can appear and disappear in an instant. If buttonwait is checked, these title/credit screens will remain on screen until a button press or mouse click is detected. Documents It's recommended to try and obtain the following documents: Amiga manual or Amiga key reference. To have a list of Amiga key commands. Some Amiga manuals may be budget versions or extremely limited in content, however the important part is the key commands. DOS manual. To have a long form version of the manual with complete content, to learn how to play the sim and fly the aircraft! Good Hunting!

The YouTube poll to decide what the 100th article should be, selected another DOS sim to receive the website treatment. Given I have quietly approached 100 articles, F-117A with it's stealthy 99 mission (plus 1 training mission) pilot career seems the ideal sim for this 100th article. One of my first setup guides was for the Mac version of F-117A, so I've finally gotten around to the PC version, nearly 100 articles later! The second place choice was for a surprise article, so for the 101st article, we'll cover something completely new and different! This article will be a discussion of running the PC version of the 1991 MicroProse classic, F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter 2.0 in DOSBox Staging v0.82.0. It will cover the versions and suggested patches for retail and digital releases on modern or legacy hardware. There will also be a brief section covering enhancements. I'll be using a gog.com release of the game. Those interested in running the later Mac version should take a look at Running the Mac version of F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter 2.0 with MAME . F-117A is the 'sequel' to, or redevelopment of, the earlier MicroProse sim F-19 Stealth Fighter. Featuring upgraded graphics (VGA version), a host of bug fixes and far less sensitivity to higher CPU speeds making it more compatible with later/faster hardware. HOTAS Config F-117A supports a single joystick, it does not support a throttle or rudder pedals. However, since I have a joystick, throttle and rudder pedals, I configured them as part of the virtual controller, even if they won't be used. This will make it easier for DOSBox to assign the correct virtual controller axes to the DOSBox joystick device axes. Configuring axes may not be required if your setup has 4 axes or less. The physical axes to Windows axes were configured as follows: Physical axis Windows axis Joystick x-axis DX_X_AXIS Joystick y-axis DX_Y_AXIS Throttle DX_Z_AXIS Rudder DX_XROT_AXIS Game management I recommend using my DOSBox game management strategy. For a digital gog.com/Steam release the recommended game management folders are: conf - to store any DOSBox or HOTAS configuration files. docs - to store any additional docs not provided by the digital release. patches - to store any patches. Given the patches and enhancements discussed later, you may wish to copy the game files from your gog or Steam installation folder into a new hdd folder, to preserve the gog/Steam installation and use this hdd folder in DOSBox Staging instead. For a retail release the above folders will be required and additionally: cd - to store any cd images ripped from a retail cd. fdd - to store any floppy images ripped from retails floppy disks. hdd - the DOSBox emulated hard disk folder, to install the game to. DOSBox Staging config This DOSBox Staging config for F-117A assumes the latest version (at time of writing), v0.82.0 will be used. The changes to the default config are shown below: [sdl] host_rate = vrr vsync = off presentation_mode = vfr [cpu] cpu_cycles = 12000 cpu_cycles_protected = auto cycleup = 100 cycledown = 100 [voodoo] voodoo = false [mixer] reverb = medium chorus = normal [midi] mididevice = mt32 [mt32] romdir = "D:\Midi\Versioned" [joystick] joysticktype = 4axis timed = true swap34 = false deadzone = 0 [autoexec] # retail release # imgmount a "D:\Games\Dos\F-117A\fdd\*.img" -t floppy -ro # imgmount d "D:\Games\Dos\F-117A\cd\*.iso" -t cdrom # mount c "D:\Games\Dos\F-117A\hdd" # c: # keyb us # cd mps # call f117.bat # exit # gog.com digital release mount C "D:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\F-117A" mount C "D:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\F-117A\cloud_saves" -t overlay c: keyb us f117.com exit We don't use high frame rate settings as the intro runs at a painfully slow pace. Instead the [sdl] settings are appropriate for a variable refresh rate monitor. If you don't have such a monitor the settings can be left at their default values. In [cpu] settings, 12000 cycles seems appropriate for my setup, however you may need to tweak this setting to find an optimum speed for your setup, so 12000 cycles is a good starting point. The cpu_cycles_protected setting will use the same cycle count as cpu_cycles when set to auto. Voodoo emulation isn't required and can be disabled. The [mixer] settings can be changed to enhance sound and music to personal preference. The [midi] and [mt32] settings enable high quality Roland midi music. The model value, auto, will default to a CM32L device. F-117A supports a CM32L device, so the model can be left as default. The midi roms folder is described in the DOSBox midi  article. The [joystick] settings are appropriate for my HOTAS setup so you may need to alter these. The timed setting must be set to true for my HOTAS. The deadzone setting is a personal preference. If you only have a joystick this could be changed to a 2axis device. The [autoexec] has example imgmount commands for the floppy images which may be needed for a retail edition. As there are multiple floppy images the imgmount command uses the '*' wildcard. There is also an example cd imgmount command if you have a cd retail copy ripped to a cd image and a mount command for the emulated hard disk folder. The retail imgmount/mount commands make use of a folder structure described in my DOSBox game management  article. The keyboard is set to a US keyboard with the keyb us command to prevent incompatibilities that may exist with other countries keyboards. The retail release settings change to the MPS folder, created by the retail installer, if the default installation folder is used, and calls the batch file to run the game. As a gog.com digital edition is being used, the mount command refers to the installation folder under the gog.com Galaxy client. gog.com releases often provide a facility to save your game in the cloud, it does this by providing an overlay mount in the GOG DOSBox config. I've recreated this mount in the DOSBox Staging config. I'm not 100% sure if it works correctly (it seems to), so please be aware and don't rely on it! The gog digital release runs the game from the mounted c: drive folder. EGA edition The following changes should be made to the above config for the EGA edition: [dosbox] machine = ega [render] glshader = crt-auto-machine [cpu] cputype = 386_prefetch cpu_cycles = 8000 [autoexec] mount C "D:\Games\Dos\F-117A\hdd-ega" keyb us c: cd f117 f117 exit The machine unsurprising should be changed to an EGA machine for the EGA release. The render setting chooses an appropriate CRT setting based on the EGA machine type. The CPU settings are similar to those used for the EGA edition of Gunship 2000. The default core setting of auto will use a normal core, allowing the 386_prefetch cputype to be used. I used a different folder for the EGA edition and the autoexec mount command reflects that. Editions and versions EGA edition F-117A is available as an EGA graphics edition and a VGA graphics edition. The EGA edition has been recently rediscovered and is available, although cannot be purchased digitally at present. The VGA version is far more common with retail editions being available on marketplaces and also available digitally through the gog.com and Steam platforms. VGA versions Like many earlier MicroProse titles the version number starts with a MicroProse product code, for F-117A this is 473. The following versions are known to exist: v473.01 was the initial retail release version. v473.02 was a later retail release, it is not known what bug fixes or enhancements are included in this release. v473.03 was a later release including the addition of digitized speech. cleaned up graphics in opening screens and bug fixes. In addition the readme file listed some previously undocumented commands. This version was also available as a patch. v473.04 was the final release. This version corrects the stealth mountains, no-credit for cargo drops, and all other reported problems. This version is available as a patch. EGA versions The EGA edition used a slightly different product code 1473. Only a single version is known to exist v1473.01 . Installation Digital releases should be installed using the appropriate gog.com offline installer, Galaxy client or Steam client. Installation should be straight-forward and complete successfully. gog.com digital release The gog.com digital release was updated on 28 October 2015 to include a missing climbin.pic file. Verifying the game files did not add this file, and the game had to be uninstalled and reinstalled before it appeared. If you are missing this file and midway through a pilot career you may wish to backup the roster.fil file before uninstalling and reinstalling the game. Retail releases I recommend ripping the installation media (cd or floppy) to cd/floppy images to save wear and tear on disks and drives. The media is already very old and may eventually fail due to aging. The game should be installed through DOSBox using the installer app present on the first floppy disk or cd and should complete without issue. Patches The following is a list of patches and the applicable versions they can be applied to. All patches are present in an archive of the MicroProse FTP site held at the Internet Archive . Version 3 update (f11703.zip) The version 3 patch upgrades earlier versions to v473.03. It should only be applied to earlier versions. Digital releases do not require this patch. It adds digitized speech. cleaned up graphics in opening screens and bug fixes. In addition the readme file lists some previously undocumented commands. This version is a cumulative patch applied using an update utility so must be run from within DOSBox or on legacy hardware. it is not applicable to the EGA edition. Version 4 update (f11704.zip) This is also known as the 'Version 3 to version 4 update' and must be applied to v473.03. This patch upgrades v473.03 to v473.04. According to patch notes: This version corrects the stealth mountains, no-credit for cargo drops, and all other reported problems. This is a file replacement patch replacing the vgame.exe file. It can be extracted in Windows and copied into the appropriate installation folder. This replacement file is identical in size to the gog.com digital release vgame.exe file so may already be patched, but can be applied again. It's not known if it is applicable to the Steam digital release. Note : The setup menu will continue to show the version as v473.03. This is not applicable to the EGA edition, which uses an egame.exe file, instead of a vgame.exe file. Interrupt settings patch From the patch notes: Because the new driver was a retrofit, we had to settle for using the factory default interrupt setting (IRQ 7). A small percentage of users have changed the interrupt setting on their cards because of interrupt conflicts in their computers. These drivers allow for use on interrupts 2,3,5 and 6. This patch should not be used if the game is running under DOSBox emulation. It is only applicable to those running the game on legacy hardware that cannot use IRQ 7. This is a file replacement patch, replacing the asound.117 file with an alternative file using the appropriate IRQ setting. There is a version of this patch for the VGA edition ( a117irqv.zip ) and one for the EGA edition ( a117irqe.zip ). An earlier version of this patch for the VGA edition ( asndirqv.zip ) contained replacement files to use interrupts 3 or 5. Although this file is still listed, it no longer exists in the FTP archive having been superseded. Fast 486 Sound Driver Updates (486snd.zip) This is a set of replacement Adlib drivers for some earlier MicroProse games including F-117A. There are replacements for both the asound.117 and asound.log files. From the patch notes: The AdLib drivers (for AdLib, Sound Blaster, Pro Audio Spectrum, Covox and compatibles) of some of our older games have had problems with newer fast computers, especially 486/66s. This file contains a number of updated sound drivers that should work fine on all fast machines. The gog.com release uses files of a smaller size and this patch was released two years after the last version update patch, so this is a recommended patch. It is not known if it is needed by the Steam release, so files sizes/dates should be examined. It is not known if this patch is compatible with alternate sound card interrupt settings (see Interrupt settings patch ).. Enhancements There is an enhancement you may wish to try out but it is only applicable to the VGA edition. Secret airstrip mission fix The secret airstrip missions in Libya and North Cape theaters were disabled in the released games. In fact the F-19 Stealth Fighter manual discusses the location of secret airstrips in these theaters. In the later F-117A manual the references to these secret airstrips are removed, but they still exist in game. The game has been analysed by debugcom and a GitHub page created detailing the investigation into the secret airstrip missions. It's amazing work and well worth a read. The result of the investigation were changes required to three files to restore these missions. So a huge thank you to debugcom for his hard work! Fortunately we don't have to go changing hex values in binary files to get this to work because @damsonn has already done it for us and provided a Steam guide with a link to download the adjusted files! So another thank you to @damsonn for making things easier! For those interested in the F-19 Stealth Fighter secret airstrip fixes there is a download in the earlier ' F-19 Stealth Fighter: North Cape secret airstrip fixed? ' article. The fix was made to v473.03 files. It should be compatible with v473.04 as this update only replaced the vgame.exe file and the secret airstrip fix changes the following files: start.exe lb.wld nc.wld This is not applicable to the EGA edition, as the start.exe file is a completely different size. Secret airstrip mission briefing v473.04 Flying a secret sirstrip mission v473.04 Game setup Version 473.04 will continue to show 473.03 Each time F-117A is started you'll go through a setup menu which asks if you have a joystick and if so you'll to asked to calibrate it. You are then be asked to select a sound/music option. The DOSBox Staging config allows you to select either Adlib (Soundblaster compatible) or Roland options. The choice is left as a personal preference. The setup menu also shows the version number, the version 4 update does not change this version number, so it continues to show v473.03. Documentation Manual The gog.com digital release includes: The manual. The keyboard reference. The aircraft id chart. In addition there are various avatar, wallpapers, etc. The retail releases include a technical reference document but this doesn't provides any additional information for a digital release. The Steam release provides the manual, but it isn't clear what additional documents are also available. Maps Steam user LILEVO has kindly provided the theater maps in a Steam guide . The Libya, Persian Gulf, North Cape and Central Europe maps from F-19 Stealth Fighter are also applicable to F-117A. F-19 Stealth Fighter Libya ONC map Good hunting!

A guide to setting up the Rowan flight sim MiG Alley in the PCem emulator. MiG Alley can be a tricky sim to get running natively in WIndows 10, and in many cases switching to PCem has provided an alternative solution. So I've supplemented my previous MiG Alley setup guide with this one. It will cover running running MiG Alley in Windows 98 SE within the PCem emulator and setting up HOTAS controllers, if required. It's recommended you take a look at the previous ' MiG Alley: Running in Windows 10 ' guide for background info and links to patches. Versions This guide assumes the use of the latest version of PCem v17, at time of writing. Either v1.0 or v1.1 cd retail versions of MiG Alley should be suitable. PCem setup If you're completely new to setting up PCem or need a refresher, I highly recommend the excellent YouTube tutorial video by PhilsComputerLab, PCem Windows 98 Setup . The only change I'd make to Phil's advice may be MiG Alley specific. Using the SB PCI 128 sound card in the emulated machine, resulted in terrible audio crackling when flying a mission. Instead I'd recommend switching to the AWE32 or SB16 soundcards, once I switched to the AWE32 the crackling disappeared. Obviously you'll need different sound card drivers once you switch and the ' Creative Sound Blaster sound card driver download links ' thread in the PCem forum provides a handy collection. Base game installation To install run up the emulated machine in PCem. I normally rip my cd's to a cd image to save wear and tear on disc and drive and just use the cd image, although PCem supports using your physical drive so either method can be used. Installation was as easy as installing on period correct legacy hardware. No issues encountered at all. Patching If you've followed Phils tutorial video, you know how easy it is to mount the PCem hard disk image (.vhd) file in modern Windows, and copy any files you need into it. Windows 98 doesn't have built in zip file support so unzip in modern Windows before copying into the mounted hard disk image. You'll need to install the latest official patch and Battle of Britain / MiG Alley Development Group (BDG) patches in the following order: Latest official patch v1.23 BDG v0.85F (Bug fixes, QoL improvements, TrackIR support) BDG v0.85F2 (Specific Windows 98/ME updates to BDG v0.85F) All patches installed very easily, no issues at all. You should now have a fully installed, patched and working copy of MiG Alley running in Windows 98 under PCem! HOTAS setup These axes were correctly set automatically Take a look at my Controllers and retro sims part 5: PCem guide for installing HOTAS controllers in PCem. Once you have a custom calibrated Windows 98 controller the hard work is done. All that remains is to open up the MiG Alley Preferences Controls menu and assign axes to your Windows 98 controller. If MiG Alley detects the Windows 98 controller, it takes a pretty good guess at automatically setting axes to flight controls. In this screenshot the assignments were all set automatically, I didn't have to change anything! Good hunting!

The classic M1 Tank Platoon This is my guide to getting M1 Tank Platoon (M1TP) running under DOSBox Staging. Before beginning it's worth noting that getting M1 Tank Platoon running in DOSBox takes quite the effort, there are a lot of mis-steps that are easy to make, it's far too easy to get the patching wrong or miss DOSBox configuration settings and break the installation or fall foul of the copy protection. Hopefully this guide will help you avoid these pitfalls and get a working installation running under DOSBox Staging. Importance of versions Setup options and version number It's vitally important to know which version of M1TP you have as it will determine the patches you need to apply. Unfortunately you may not know this until until you either change some obscure DOSBox options and run it in a vanilla state or apply the Pentium update patch before you run it! The version is shown on the setup options screen as shown. There are two versions you're like likely to come across the initial release version v449.01 and a later v449.02 . I believe v449.02 includes the Firing patch, Adlib patch and Roland patch. Version 449.02 is the preferred version as it requires less patching. All the releases encountered so far, have been distributed by floppy disk image. They may be distributed as either 2 x 720k 3.5" disk images or 3 x 360k 5.25" disk images, but there may be others. I actually have the big box game but still use floppy disk images to save wear and tear on the disks. Game folders I use my DOSBox game folder scheme described in  DOSBox game management . So in my case I have a D:\games\dos\M1 Tank Platoon  folder with the following sub folders: conf (DOSBox Staging configuration file). docs (manuals, other docs, etc.) fdd (floppy disk drive, for the floppy images) hdd (hard disk drive, folder used by DOSBox to emulate a C: drive) patches (folder to keep the zipped patches) images (folder to keep the zipped floppy images) A cd folder isn't required as we won't be using a cd image. As I was testing both versions I used fdd and hdd for v449.01 and fdd2 and hdd2 for v449.02, but you'll only need a single fdd and hdd folder. Command line options M1TP supports a number of command line options. The following is taken from the technical supplement: /J Joystick will be used /NJ No Joystick is used /GE Graphics are EGA 16-color /GM Graphics are MCGA or VGA 256-color /GC Graphics are CGA 4-color /GT Graphics are Tandy 1000 16-color /GH Graphics are Hercules monochrome /AI Audio (sound) is IBM (emulated PC speaker) /AT Audio (sound) is Tandy 1000 /AA Audio (sound) is AdLib (emulated Soundblaster) /AN Audio (sound) is off (No sounds) /D0 Detail level is low /D1 Detail level is high /O Options are the same as last game (see below) /T Title screens are disabled (see below) Note, v449.02 has the Roland sound driver, but there is no command line option for it. The v449.01 version has the Roland sound driver added by patch (see Patching versions below). The /O and /T options are best described by the technical supplement: Options Repeat (/O): Every time you start the simulation saves a file titled “OPTS” that records your parameters (including joystick information). The /O parameter reads those saved parameters from the OPTS file. The option doesn’t work the first time, or when loading from an original disk. Title Screens (/T): This option parameter disables the title sequence and music. Initially you must use it with /O; that is, “TANK /O /T”. Thereafter it becomes part of the options repeat (/O) parameter. If you haven't played for a little while, you may wish to skip 'Options Repeat' if you wish to recalibrate your joystick. DOSBox Staging setup The DOSBox Staging video and rendering setup defaults provide a solid set of options that don't need to be tweaked for a really good gaming experience. You may find the 'out of the box' settings never need to be changed. Running vanilla versions (not recommended) If you wish to discover the version of M1TP you have, it's recommended to install M1TP then apply the Pentium update patch before running. It's not recommended to use the settings described below. If you are dead-set on the vanilla experience then there are some additional DOSBox settings to be aware of that normally aren't used. CPU setup M1TP is one of the few games to require the use of the 386_prefetch CPU type. Failure to select this option for a vanilla install will result in the game hanging. As we have to use the 386_prefetch CPU we must also use the normal core as it is the only core which supports this. Both of these options are in the cpu section of the config. [dosbox] setup I have a suspicion that the copy protection employed by M1TP will result in the TANK.COM executable writing data back to itself. DOSBox will detect this and generate a 'Corrupt MCB chain' error before terminating. To avoid this in the dosbox section of the config, the mcb_fault_strategy must be set to allow . Example config An example config suitable for running a vanilla M1TP installation has these additional config settings: [dosbox] mcb_fault_strategy = allow [cpu] core = normal cputype = 386_prefetch CPU setup This is my subjective opinion so your experiences may differ. The CPU settings are often overlooked and get left on auto, I know I normally did but I've recently discovered that the CPU settings may affect the gaming experience. In short, I think the simple core may be underused (but optimised) for older games not requiring protected mode, M1TP being one such game. If you have problems with the simple core, you can always switch back to an auto or normal core. You may wish to increase CPU cycles and control speed through the battle speed gameplay option (see Running below). Midi setup For a discussion on midi setup see DOSBox midi . For DOSBox Staging the versioned MT-32 roms are used. M1TP v449.01 with the Roland patch or v449.02 work well with the CM32L and MT32 new roms, so leaving the MT32 model , (in the mt32 section) as auto will default to CM32L roms. Controller Setup For an in-depth look at modern HOTAS controller configuration for retro flight sims, take a look at my series of posts, Controllers and retro sims . M1TP only uses 2 controller axes, the joystick x-axis and y-axis. No throttle or rudder axis is needed. Those with a HOTAS with an integrated throttle/rudder axes should be fine. I didn't need a TARGET profile to use my joystick, the game calibration found it and it doesn't make much sense to have a throttle or rudder axis for this sim. My example config This is my example config with the changes/options most likely to change from the DOSBox Staging default. [sdl] fullscreen = false fullresolution = desktop windowresolution = default viewport_resolution = fit [render] aspect = true glshader = crt-auto integer_scaling = vertical [cpu] core = simple cputype = auto cycles = fixed 3000 cycleup = 100 cycledown = 100 [midi] mididevice = mt32 [mt32] model = auto romdir = "D:\Midi\Versioned" # your dir may differ [joystick] joysticktype = 4axis timed = true deadzone = 0 # my preference [autoexec] # v449.01 # imgmount a "D:\Games\Dos\M1 Tank Platoon\fdd\disk1.img" "D:\Games\Dos\M1 Tank Platoon\fdd\disk2.img" "D:\Games\Dos\M1 Tank Platoon\fdd\disk3.img" -t floppy -ro # mount c "D:\Games\Dos\M1 Tank Platoon\hdd" # v449.02 imgmount a "D:\Games\Dos\M1 Tank Platoon\fdd2\disk1.img" "D:\Games\Dos\M1 Tank Platoon\fdd2\disk2.img" -t floppy -ro mount c "D:\Games\Dos\M1 Tank Platoon\hdd2" c: # call tank.bat call m1tpmenu.bat Installation Installation is straightforward, locate the INSTALL.EXE utility on the first disk and run it. Specify the C: drive and installation will begin. If you are using multiple floppy images, the install utility will ask you to switch disks. In DOSBox Staging will switch to the next disk in the imgmount list. Patching versions All patches were originally on the MicroProse FTP site, now no longer available on the internet. An archived version of ftp.microprose.com exists at the Internet Archive which is where these patches were sourced from. Recommended v449.01 patches: Pentium update patch Firing patch Adlib patch Roland patch Recommended v449.02 patches: Pentium update patch Pentium update patch (P5UPD.ZIP) This patch is strongly recommended for both v449.01 and v449.02. It provides compatibility fixes for Pentium class machines. It also seems to remove copy protection from M1TP. Once this patch is installed it should be easier to run in DOSBox. Firing patch (M1FIRE.ZIP) This patch is recommended for v449.01 and will break v449.02 by generating a request to supply the key disk. From the MicroProse FTP archive: This is a Zip File containing a fix for the continuous firing encountered with Version .01 on certain clones. Unzip and copy the file to your TANK Directory. Adlib patch (486SND.ZIP) This patch is recommended for v449.01 only. It may work on v449.02 but it will corrupt the Adlib menu option on the setup audio menu. I believe this may already be integrated into v449.02, judging from the file timestamps on v449.02 and the patch contents. From the patch README.TXT: The AdLib drivers (for AdLib, Sound Blaster, Pro Audio Spectrum, Covox and compatibles) of some of our older games have had problems with newer fast computers, especially 486/66s. This file contains a number of updated sound drivers that should work fine on all fast machines. Roland patch (MPSROL.ZIP) Option 1 would enable Roland sound This patch is recommended for v449.01 and isn't required for v449.02, having the Roland sound driver already built in. From the MicroProse FTP archive: This file contains Roland MT-32/LAPC-1/CM-32L drivers for the following older MPS games: F19 Stealth Fighter, F15 Strike Eagle II, Red Storm Rising, Knights of the Sky, Lightspeed, M1 Tank Platoon. See the readme file in the zip for installation info. To install this patch on v449.01 you must replace an existing sound driver, so the RSOUND.TNK file must be renamed to either ASOUND.TNK, ISOUND.TNK, NSOUND.TNK or TSOUND.TNK. My recommendation would be to replace either the ISOUND (IBM PC speaker) or TSOUND (Tandy) driver. You would then select the option replaced by the Roland sound driver in the M1TP setup menu. 'No key disk' patches (M1NOKEY.ZIP and MPSKEY.ZIP) These patches are not recommended, preference given instead to the Pentium update patch. However if you are dead-set on a vanilla experience or aim to run M1TP on period correct hardware you may wish to use them. MPSKEY.ZIP contains multiple patches for a variety of MicroProse sims including M1TP while M1NOKEY.ZIP is a patch for M1TP only. Enhancements The Desert scenery patch came from an archived version of ftp.microprose.com  at the Internet Archive . Desert scenery (M1DESERT.ZIP) This patch allows you to choose between Europe and desert scenery. It is compatible with both version v449.01 and v449.02. From the MicroProse FTP archive: This is a Zip File containing the files required to change the VGA Color Palette of M1 from Europe to Desert. Unzip the files to the TANK Directory and Type "Runme". This is an optional patch, which is down to personal preference. Start-up menu m1tpmenu.bat I've created a start-up menu, very heavily influenced (if not downright copied in places!) by the work damson did for F-19 Stealth Fighter. It provides options for choosing the Europe/Desert scenery, running M1TP, running with existing options, running with existing options and skipping the intro, backup and restore of the roster. Usage: Unzip into the TANK installation folder and run M1TPMENU.BAT Documents M1TP has an extensive manual and you need this to play effectively. The technical supplement provides a useful summary of options and commands. They are available online but probably require a bit of work to hunt down. I keep these docs in my D:\games\dos\M1 Tank Platoon\docs folder and then place a shortcut to this docs folder on my desktop when playing. That way if I need to consult any docs, I can pause M1TP, switch from fullscreen to window, open the docs folder shortcut and check out any docs without having to hunt around for them. Running Battle Speed You may wish to experiment with increasing cycles while employing the battle speed option to slow gameplay. However, adjusting cycles while using a joystick will negatively affect the joystick calibration. The battle speed is best described by the Technical Supplement: M1 Tank Platoon has five internal speeds, from Level 0 to Level 4. From your standpoint as a player, lower levels accelerate the game, while higher levels slow things down. When you toggle in and out of accelerated time (“Alt a”) the speed level is displayed. Accelerated time goes to the next lower Level than normal time. However, on 8086 and 8088 machines where Level 0 is “normal” time, accelerated time has no effect (because there’s no Level -1). You can manually adjust the speed Level using the Insert key. On some machines you may find the simulation runs too fast. If so, use this key to change the speed to the next higher Level, which slows things down. You can return to the standard Levels by toggling Alt a between normal and accelerated speed, ending up with the normal speed setting once more. Finally Hopefully you have setup DOSBox Staging, installed and patched M1TP and it's working. If not check the steps you went through in this guide, it's easy to miss a step or mis-configure something. Remember the patches are very version specific so only use the patches recommended for your version. Good Hunting!